Barack Like Me

I went to Denver knowing I had arranged access to the Big Tent for "new media" and that was great (see previous accounts earlier in the week!) I didn't expect to go in the Pepsi Center (and didn't) and even more did not expect to get into Invesco Center the last night. My brother had a ticket but I was geared up to watch on a big screen in a bar or at MSNBC stage.

I got a phone call around noon from Washington Dems and if I headed out to Hyatt Tech Center I might be able to score a ticket! I had to figure out which light rail and it took over an hour to get there but I got my ticket! Then I think that I was in line for at least a couple of hours - it was the longest line I'd ever seen let alone been in. It was lively enough though - Trick or Vote vampires, Obama merch entrepreneurs, people screaming that both parties are the same, some guy dressed as a Pope with a naked boy facsimile on his back and one of those inbred Phelps Family people going nuts into a megaphone that we'd all be going to hell.

My seat was way up in the nosebleed section and the stadium was so vertically inclined that it introduced a kind of vertigo. I got ahold of my brother via cell phone and he was directly across the stadium but we had to stay in our own sections. It took me a long time to get around the upper level of the stadium to even find my section but I could hear Will-I-Am singing his viral video song! Sheryl Crow, Michael McDonald, Stevie Wonder and Al Gore, Dick Durbin, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, surely I'm forgetting someone, and then finally Barack Obama!

After he finished his speech, there were fireworks in the manner of the Chinese Olympics Opening (on a smaller scale but certain more than the Republicans could ever pull off, though I've seen the Rolling Stones do it!) & it was cool to see the podium descend right into the ground, like one of the trick sets of Cirque du Soleil.

Notice on the photos that I was enjoying photographing people going up and down in the stands, the security marksmen way up high, the changing colors of the sky and anyone who had unusual regalia or made me feel especially happy. It was a logjam getting out, with people converging from all directions to try to cross a single bridge to the light rail, and trains packed Tokyo-style.


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